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Guide Overview

Put on Your Own Oxygen Mask

This video is about how to care for ourselves in the context of caring for our children.
Date
February 24, 2023
Summary Notes

- Prioritizing self-care is important for being a supportive and effective parent

- To achieve physical well-being, prioritize nourishing your body with healthy, comforting foods and forming a support network for assistance with tasks such as grocery shopping and driving kids to events

- Parents can struggle with self-care due to isolation, depression, or other mental health issues and should reach out to their doctor or connect with resources such as therapy or support groups if necessary

- Children, especially highly sensitive ones, internalize parents' behavior towards self-care, so it's important to model good habits and prioritize self-care for the benefit of your children

- Use a worksheet to create self-care goals and share them with someone in your support network for accountability and encouragement

- Take small steps towards self-care, such as taking micro naps, and remember that you deserve care and your children need you to prioritize self-care.

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 We all know the old adage of put your mask in. Most people know that when you're on an airplane, you as a parent have to put your oxygen mask on first before you put the mask on your child, because if you are passed out, it's not likely that they're gonna do that. Well, how the heck do we do this? Our kids need us all the time.

Took a few areas that I want you to develop in your life in order to be able to get care for you.  so that you are grounded and stable enough to offer your children the type of support they need from you. The first is your physical well. I want you to take the mentality that it is your job to nurture and nourish your body with the things that you need in the same way that you wanna offer that to your children.

So whether that's having an array of foods that you are really love and are comforting to you and nourish your body and nutritious, making sure those foods are around so that you can eat them. Having a support network is, is.  imperative in this process. Who are people? Maybe they're in your neighborhood, maybe they're in your family, maybe they're in your kid's school system like that you can link up with and say, Hey, can you be a part of my team?

I could use some help with a few things here and there. Maybe it's with grocery shopping. Maybe it's with helping drive your kids to different events, but making sure that there are people on your team so that you can do the things that you need to do to take care of your. . No, you all don't need me to tell you all this.

You know it, but I want to encourage you to know that this will make a big difference for your kids. I think sometimes it's hard for us to motivate ourselves to take care of ourselves just for us, especially if we weren't taken care of when we were little and growing up. But you need to take care of you for your children.

They need to see that they need a model of a parent who takes care of themselves, and that is how you're gonna stay in a place where you can. Thanks. If you're listening to me and you're like, there's no way I can't exercise and move my body or feed my body nutritionally, or think about my needs or reach out to people, it might be that you're in the midst of a depression, and that is really common for parents because we are living in such an isolated society where we tend to be in our individual homes.

If that's you, I want you to call your doctor, and I want you to figure out how to get connected to resources, whether that's taking an ssri, an antidepressant to help your brain kind of get to that. Functional place so that you can do some of the things you need to do to take care of yourself or whether that is, um, getting a therapist or getting a support group that want you to make sure you're taking care of you.

children, especially highly sensitive children, will pick up on your behavior towards yourself and internalize it. So they'll see that you aren't doing these things for yourself, and they will feel like a burden that you're doing things for them, or they will start to adapt that into their own model and start pleasing other people as opposed to really taking the time to say, Hey, this is what I need to do.

I'm gonna give you a little worksheet in this guide that you can use to create some goals for yourself, and I want you to take that worksheet. I want you to share it with somebody, like have someone on your team in your world that you can say, I made this worksheet, this lady on the Internet's making me do it.

I'm supposed to take care of myself. I'm just hanging out loud to you so that maybe it will help me do it more. Any insights or tips that you have for me on how I could do this? Like get connected to people? Maybe that person will be like, oh, you know what I did, I did this. I put this thing in my fridge and I, and you'll be like, okay, I can do this.

You deserve to be taken care of and your children need you to do whatever it is you can. And we can't always do all these things all the time. You know, sometimes there are seasons where we are sleep deprived because our children just aren't sleeping, and that's what's happen. Whew. That's hard. That's one of those unmet needs.

If that's the case, take micro napps during the day. I call it a micro nap. I don't know if it's relieving a nap, but I will like literally lay down for five minutes, set an alarm, close my eyes, and just try and relax my body. Sometimes I do think I fall asleep. It's like, but giving just a little bit of rest helps my brain feel like, okay, it's not all go all the time.

I'm so glad you're here. You deserve this care.